Paris, February 14, 1802.

After speaking of the Board of Longitude and the National Observatory, I must not omit to say a few words of an establishment much wanted in England. I mean the

DÉPÔT DE LA MARINE.

This general repository of maps, charts, plans, journals, and archives of the Navy and the Colonies, is under the direction of a flag-officer. It is situated in the Rue de la Place VendÔme; but the archives are still kept in an office at Versailles. To this DÉpÔt are attached the Hydrographer and Astronomer of the Navy, both members of the National Institute and of the Board of Longitude, and also a number of engineers and draughtsmen proportioned to the works which the government orders to be executed.

The title of this DÉpÔt sufficiently indicates what it contains. To it has been lately added a library, composed of all the works relative to navigation, hydrography, naval architecture, and to the navy in general, as well as of all the voyages published in the different dead or living languages. The collection of maps, charts, plans, &c. belonging to it, is composed of originals in manuscript, ancient and modern, of French or foreign sea-charts, published at different times, and of maps of the possessions beyond the seas belonging to the maritime states of Europe and to the United-States of America.

All the commanders of vessels belonging to the State are bound, on their return to port, to address to the Minister of the Naval Department, in order to be deposited in the archives, the journals of their voyage, and the astronomical or other observations which they have been enabled to make, and the charts and plans which they have had an opportunity of constructing.

One of the apartments of the DÉpÔt contains models of ships of war and other vessels, the series of which shews the progress of naval architecture for two centuries past, and the models of the different machines employed in the ports for the various operations relative to building, equipping, repairing, and keeping in order ships and vessels of war.

The DÉpÔt de la Marine publishes new sea-charts in proportion as new observations or discoveries indicate the necessity of suppressing or rectifying the old ones.

When the service requires it, the engineers belonging to the DÉpÔt are detached to verify parts of the coasts of the French territory in Europe, or in any other part of the world, where experience has proved that time has introduced changes with which it is important to be acquainted, or to rectify the charts of other parts that had not yet been surveyed with the degree of exactness of which the methods now known and practised have rendered such works susceptible.

In the French navy, commanders of ships and vessels are supplied with useful charts and atlases of every description, at the expense of the nation. These are delivered into their care previously to the ship leaving port. When a captain is superseded in his command, he transfers them to his successor; and when the ship is put out of commission, they are returned to the proper office. Why does not the British government follow an example so justly deserving of imitation?